Plastic surgeons at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at the military base in El Paso, Texas, have managed to re-grow a new ear on a human forearm, local media reported.
Shamika Burrage, a Texas-based soldier, lost her ear in a terrible car accident at the age of 19, but now she will be able to feel it again.
The surgery is hailed as "the first of its kind." It includes carving a new ear out of cartilage harvested from Burrage's ribs and then growing it under the skin in her arm.
"The whole goal is by the time she's done with all this, it looks good, it's sensate, and in five years if somebody doesn't know her they won't notice," Lt. Col. Owen Johnson III, the chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the medical center said, cited by Fox 7.
READ MORE: US Medical Team Conducts First Total Penis and Scrotum Transplant (VIDEO)
Social media users have been actively debating the news.
Many praised the achievement of the doctors.
Amazingly awesome
— Halycon Ballard (@BallardHal) 11 мая 2018 г.
that is absolutely wonderful--
— Karen Colbourn (@CatDancerInSky1) 11 мая 2018 г.
Others were less excited about the news.
When Chinese doctors grew a nose on eyebrows for reconstructive surgery couple of years ago, the whole western press mocked them. That's when I realised China will beat USA in everything.
— Siddique, A. 🇮🇳 (@notthatsid) 11 мая 2018 г.
That’s pretty wild
— Dylan Ortega (@dylanortega22) 10 мая 2018 г.
Some Internet users found the procedure pretty "creepy."
Amazing and creepy.. so often those words are used in one form or another
— Matt (@Fled81) 10 мая 2018 г.
— #UnapologeticallyBlack #WakandaForever (@dawnsaffron) 10 мая 2018 г.
Earlier, Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors announced that their plastic and reconstructive surgeons had successfully carried out the world's first transplant of a penis, scrotum and abdominal wall on a soldier who had sustained injuries in Afghanistan, losing his genitals.
Doctors hope that in a few months the patient will be able to urinate while standing, and that later his sexual function will be also restored.
